Several years ago I read a book called “Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters” [1] about evolutionary psychology. I really enjoyed how evolutionary psychologists come up with theories about why we behave like we do. One of the main takeaways for me is that it takes our brain takes 10,000 years to evolve. So the things we do today sometimes have their bases in survival in a land 10,000 years ago. This is called the Savanna principle.
For example, 10,000 years ago sweet and fatty foods were not common, but were required for survival because of their high calorie content. So when our 10,000 year old ancestor did come across sweet or fatty foods, those that had a high desire for sweets and fats consumed large amounts, lived longer, and had more kids. Soon our brain evolved to crave sweet and fatty foods, and on the rare occasion when they found a lot of fruit, or a fatty animal was killed, they devoured it. So what happens when our 10,000 year old brain is presented in the last 100 years with cheap and plentiful sweets and fats? We crave it, but since it is so cheap and plentiful, we eat too much, and health problems multiply. In 10,000 years from now, will we have evolved to not like sweets and fats?
The book has a whole chapter on marriage, with a large part of it dedicated to polygamy [2] . They cite some statistics that show that 83.39% of traditional societies practice polygyny, 16.14% practice monogamy, and only 0.47% practice polyandry. The reason for so little polyandry was that a woman needs a partner that is invested in helping to take care of the child. If the man is not certain the child is his, he has little or no incentive to help. There is no certainty in a polyandrous relationship who the father is.
Side note: as you read on, do not fall for the appeal to nature fallacy. That is tendency to believe what is natural is good. “Natural” means neither good nor desirable.
The idea that humans naturally practice polygyny and have been practicing it for tens of thousands of years comes from an interesting study. Both among primates and non-primate species, the given amount of polygyny in a species highly correlates with the degree of sexual dimorphism in size (i.e. the extent to which the males are larger than the females). The more polygynous a species, the grater the size difference between the sexes. For example, the gibbons are complete monogamous, and there is no difference in size between the sexes. Contrast that to the gorillas, which are extremely polygynous. The males are on average 1.3 times larger than the females. Humans fall somewhere in the middle at 1.1 in height and 1.2 times by weight. As the authors put it
This suggests that, throughout evolutionary history, humans have been mildly polygynous, not as polygynous as gorillas, but not completely monogamous like gibbons either. This is how we know that humans are naturally polygynous.
page 86
The authors then go on to postulate that if a society practices monogamy or polygyny it is determined by the women. Monogamy is the norm when many or most women chose to marry monogamously, and polygyny is the norm when many or most the women chose to marry polygynously.
But why would any woman chose polygyny? From the book
One important determinant of the institution of marriage is the degree of resource inequality among men (the difference between the richest men and the poorest men). In societies with a high degree of resource inequality, where rich men are very much richer than poor men, women (and their children) are better off sharing the few wealthy men, because one-half, one-quarter, or even one-tenth of a wealthy man is still better than a whole of a poor man when resource inequality is extreme.
page 89
So let’s relate this to Mormon polygyny. With Brigham Young, the most famous and probably prolific polygamist, there was definitely a huge difference in his wealth and the wealth of the common Mormon farmer. Was it better to have 1/50th of Brigham Young’s wealth and attention vice all of a poor farmer living in a mud incrusted cabin? From an evolutionary point of view, was it more likely that a woman’s child would grow to adulthood and reproduce if married to Brigham vice the poor man? Probably so.
How does Joseph Smith factor into this? He does not seems to be much wealthier than his contemporaries. What resource did Joseph possess that was what so much greater that the other men that women would chose polygyny? What about wealth untold in the heavens! Joseph could deliver exaltation! Was it better to have 1/30 of Joseph and live in heaven than a whole man who the women could not be sealed to?
It appears that the Nauvoo polygamy was pretty much based on resource disparity of Godliness (I’m the Prophet and can promise you exaltation), while the Utah polygyny is probably split between the disparity of Godliness and the wealth of the men.
Your thoughts? Could polygamy be awful and repugnantly (which I think it is), and still be natural?
[1] I have three daughter and no sons, just saying.
[2] Polygyny = one man/many wives, Polyandry = one woman/many husbands, Polygamy refers to both polygyny and polyandry.
Wheat & Tares 
Perhaps,
Pornography is popular because a man can “have” many woman at little or no cost/responsibility. And porn gives women can fantasize about having an abundant choice of men.
I’m not sure I fully understand what is “natural” for humans. Currently, I am inclined towards a “serial monogamy” variation (I notice that your sources don’t talk about serial monogamy), but that could be because I am strongly influenced by a monogamous society and culture. As I see it, we seem to have a strong desire to bond in pairs (main evidence is that we seem to have a natural sense of jealousy when bonded), but we don’t have the natural inclination to make those pair bonds lifelong. So we meet someone, limerence takes hold, and the pair spends a few years together, has a child or two, then splits (not sure how they decide who takes the children), then goes in search of a new partner. Evolution takes grandma’s fertility away (menopause) so she can help with childcare as couples divide.
I don’t know, I’m sure there are holes in the ideas, but it seems to make sense to me. One thing that does seem clear to me is that lifelong monogamy is not our natural inclination.
Evolutionary psychology is purely theoretical. It isn’t science. I imagine that multiple parents (polyamory) are desirable for a child, but it depends on many factors and would be experimental under current conditions.
Everything humans do is natural. Since we’re a product of nature, it would be hubris to call any of our behaviors superior, inferior to, or standing outside nature. A human population building a civilization that produces nuclear reactors and wifi is just as natural as a chimpanzee using a stick to fish termites out of the ground.
So yes, polygamy is a natural human behavior. So is Eurovision. And murder. And space travel. And fentanyl. And Tik Tok. Some of these behaviors are moral, some are immoral, while some require nuance to parse our their ethical implications (like wearing crocs or going to the local 711 for sexual liaisons).
I do think it’s fascinating to document the family structures of various human cultures as well as those of non-human primates. But the prevalence of those structures, human or otherwise, has no bearing on the ethics or morality of them. So yes, polygamy is both natural and bad.
One of the great mysteries out there is whether or not we will be organized as families in the next life, and what that will look like. What will families look like? Here’s some very basic bullet points:
– The COJCOLDS says we will be organized as families but only those of us who make it to the top 1/3 of the Celestial Kingdom.
– There’s nothing about this in the BOM. which contains the “fullness of the Gospel”.
– There’s nothing about this in the Bible (except the part where it says that there will be no marriage in Heaven)
– We (LDS) don’t practice polygamy currently, but we have not renounced polygamy and our two top leaders (RMN and DHO) are sealed to two women. DHO famously stated in a conference talk two years ago that we shouldn’t worry about how that will play out in the next life, but if you believe the doctrine, we know what it means.
– When the rest of the US was operating under monogamy, the brethren insisted that polygamy was the Lord’s way.
– Now that most of the US is in favor of gay marriage, the Brethren insist that heterosexual marriage is the Lord’s way.
– Most animal species practice what we would call heterosexual sex, but there are exceptions
– Most (all?) animals are not monogamous sexually
So what does it all mean? Who the heck knows? Is polygamy “natural”? I have no idea.
All I know on this subject can be summarized in me having a male ancestor who was excommunicated for refusing to enter plural marriage. Now this is family folklore and cannot be verified, but for some reason it pleased my wife when she heard it just after we were married. She’s always said I came from good stock and made sure I recount the family legend to my children.
To answer Bishop Bill’s question of “Is polygamy natural?” I would answer yes, as long as we define natural from an evolutionary perspective. In fact the evolutionary evidence is quite clear that humans have evolve to breed in polygamous groups. For a good overview of the evidence in support of this thesis I suggest reading two books.
The first, by Dr Christopher Ryan and his wife Cacilda Jetha, is titled “Sex at Dawn wherein they discuss the various evidence for the naturalness of polygamy. You can also find videos that Ryan has published on Youtube. His Ted talk is a good place to start.
The other book is entitled “The Secret of Tiny Cloud” which is part fiction and part non-fiction. In the fictional part of the book is the story of a young girl and her entry into the polygamous breeding system of her culture. It also has a non-fictional part which touches on the issue of our polygamous natures and how that nature has impacted monogamous couples both in and out of the Church.
A second and perhaps more important question is, is polygamy a good thing or not. It is hard to argue that it isn’t as long as you accept the belief that God authorized Joseph Smith to teach it in the first place
The problem we have today is historical. Lindsay Hansen Park has done a yeoman’s job in detailing the problems with polygamy as practised by Brigham Young. I would argue that the problems with polygamy have more to do with polygyny than polyandry and that had Brigham Young continued with what Joseph was practising fewer problems would have ensued. It should noted that regardless of your belief on this issue, whether you believe in monogamy or not, there are no perfect solutions to the question of how humans should breed or for that matter any issues involving imperfect people.
My view of it is- The natural man desires to have sexual relations with multiple partners. Our brains are wired for novelty and pleasure. That’s never been the justification for polygamy (and certainly wouldn’t/doesn’t justify it)- but it’s hard for me not to imagine that that didn’t have something to do with certain people wanting to practice it.
One of our purposes in this life is to put off the natural man – and I believe, to find one eternal spouse. I’m a big supporter of monogamy, both in this life and in the next.
Smart and insightful writing as always. I find these discussions and other discussion around the make up of family relations very difficult. I have very complicated and unformulated concerns and anxieties around this topic. As someone who has remained predominately celibate my entire life (now inescapably caught in the orbit of early middle age) because I chose to live the Law of Chastity, I fear that any opportunities to be loved in a romantic way are long past. I agree wholeheartedly polygamy is a real problem, but to think that trying to do what is right will result in perpetual celibacy through all the eternities is depressing. And now, as some have suggested in this post and elsewhere, the doubts that even family relations will exist is at times too much to bear since I really like my family. I have great parents, siblings and nieces and nephews. I guess my task is to comes to terms with the fact that if there is an afterlife, it will be a long and lonely one.
Pretty sure the top lh wife is male. Perhaps if you have that many wives you want variety?
Geoff-Aus, I wondered if anybody else noticed that. Maybe BY played for both teams?
Chil: Same boat. I have tried to keep the Law of Chasity my whole life and have never married. Now I’m looking at eternal polygamy or eternal loneliness. I know this bothers all the married women, but I’d rather share a man than be alone forever.
I was going to go comment on the relative lack of women in the comments (with the caveat that you can’t always be sure because pseudonyms). Thanks for the perspectives of those who did comment. This topic is naturally more uncomfortable for women than men.
I think it is worth spending some time and energy thinking about people in the situations of Chil and Same Boat, people who choose celibacy in this life in hopes of achieving a happy family in the next life. It would be nice if church leaders could think of doctrine, policies, and practices that encourage and enable relationships in this life as well as the next. I wish you all the best that this life can offer you.
——-
Certainly polygyny has been more common than polyandry. Serial monogamy may also look like polygyny, from an evolutionary perspective. Another consideration is the danger that women have always faced in child birth. Maternal mortality rates probably contributed greatly to serial monogamy.
yeah, I haven’t really wanted to touch this but I guess a few thoughts:
(1) Since it takes women 9 months to gestate a baby and a woman could really only have a baby every 1-2 years, whereas it takes men like 2 minutes to complete their contribution to reproduction, from a strictly “maximize reproduction” standpoint polygyny could be considered “natural” because men could be getting tons of women pregnant at the same time but women can’t get pregnant a bunch of times at the same time.
(2) This does run into the problem that if there are equal-ish number of men and women, polygyny means that only *some* men get to reproduce. But again, from an evolutionary perspective, that could be a good thing because men would have to compete with one another to be able to reproduce so presumably women would pick the strongest / smartest / wealthiest / healthiest “best”. That would lead to problems eventually with inbreeding but initially kinda makes sense. In the LDS Church is seems that men can be pretty mediocre to catch a good wife because there are more active women than men in the Church so there’s a supply / demand imbalance that favors men. Polygyny would resolve that problem. If you are a crappy guy, a woman could just go be another guy’s second wife and you’re left in the dust.
(3) Of course, when it comes to LDS polygamy, the big problem is consent. There’s no consent really for anyone because men were taught that you have to practice polygamy to get into the CK and women were basically forced to accept it. And even now, there is no consent because a deceased wife can’t prevent her husband from remarrying and bringing a second woman into the marriage.
(4) In addition to consent, I think the other big problem with polygamy now is that I think we view marriage and family relationships as about more than reproduction. If it was all about maximizing reproduction, then OK, polygamy could make sense. But at least in modern-day Western societies, marriage is more about partnership, companionship, forming bonds, loyalty, etc. – it’s about a LOT more than reproduction. And I think for many people, polygamy would be counter to those goals (how do you have a partnership if you’ve got multiple woman but only one man, how can you feel secure in your marital bond / loyalty if you’re competing with other women for your husband’s time / attention, etc.). So I would say generally even consensual polygamy may not be a good way to fulfill needs for connection and belonging in a marriage and family relationship.
I agree with MrShorty. What I’m mostly seeing, even in LDS circles, is more aligned with serial monogamy. It seems to be the trend and is supported by the famous Esther Perel quote that “Most people are going to have two or three marriages or committed relationships in their adult life. Some of us will have them with the same person.”
Elisa’s point 2 above reminded me of when I learned about the Lost Boys of polygamy. Since polygamy requires more females than males, and since females produce about the same number of females and males, polygamy eventually has to kick out the boys/men to be sustainable. Their stories are tragic. So in that regard, I’m not sure that model of living is indeed natural or ethical.
“It would be nice if church leaders could think of doctrine, policies, and practices that encourage and enable relationships in this life as well as the next.”
Well said, Rockwell.
Imbalances of numbers between adult males and females in the church has implications to consider. Will more women remain single and experience the loneliness that sometimes can go with that? Will there be more divorce in the church when there’s a large pool of single women for men to marry if they decide to divorce?
Could we rethink the practice of endogamy (marrying within an in group)?
What are current barriers to marrying outside the church and what can be done to diminish them?
Members can make responsible and mature decisions about their lives for themselves. If a person finds a suitable mate outside the church could they consider it an option?
Shout out to Elisa for noting on Mar 31 that “Our strongest position is in recognizing we have our own power and authority and that we don’t need permission—from male leaders or texts or anything outside ourselves—to stand in relationship with the divine, and talk about it.” Can this idea also extend to decisions about who we might date and marry? (I hope it’s okay with you, Elisa, my bringing that idea to this conversation. It’s so powerfully stated.)
I want to believe in a loving and expansive God who desires that we all be happy and fulfilled both in this life and any life that might follow.
First of all, the author of the book Bishop Bill read, and several others of the same general idea, is that yes, if you look at recorded history there are more polygamous societies than monogamous societies. But recorded historical time is not the timeframe when humans evolved. So, if we are going to look at the kind of marriage or mating that was found in prehistoric societies, we need to look more at hunter/gathering tribes, rather than large agricultural societies.
Agriculture changed things. It turned nomadic, small tribes into larger, stationary societies, in which there was no longer economic, gender, or political equality. Wars were fought over land, and warriors became necessary to the society’s survival. The land owners got rich, while those who owned no land got poorer. More people lived to adulthood because there was more food, which cause the society to go to war with neighbors to gain more land, and it had the advantage of killing off a few thousand extra men. The rich rulers could send off all the poor to war, because, well they were rich and could pay soldiers. And the poor were expendable. That left a few thousand extra women, minus those who died in childbirth. You could look at it as just that agriculture caused polygamy, or that agriculture set off a chain of events that caused polygamy.
But which would you rather have? Constant wars? Men as cannon fodder? And the very rich paying the poor to go get killed in a war that only benefits the rich? Well, OK, sounds exactly like what we do have. So, maybe the only thing we fixed is the polygamy.
Polygamy actually acts as a form of birth control. Well, that isn’t exactly correct. Polygamy acts as population control, because each woman has fewer children and many men have zero children. Many cultures actually used polygamy as population control, along with war to kill off the extra men. Bad enough what today’s polygamists do, by exiling the extra (boys) men out of the smaller polygamous group, but traditionally they were just sent off to war to be killed, and if one war didn’t kill off enough, they could always have another.
I don’t understand why men fantasize about polygamy as if they personally are the alpha male. They are no more likely to be the alpha with many wives in that life than they are the super rich in this life. Guys, sorry to break it to you, but you’re the little guy who gets sent off to war with a 10% chance of coming home.
“How does Joseph Smith factor into this? He does not seems to be much wealthier than his contemporaries. What resource did Joseph possess that was what so much greater that the other men that women would chose polygyny?”
Smith kept his extra marriages on the down-low. They weren’t so much “marriages” as we understand the term, as affairs. I’m unaware of any offspring that resulted, although there may have been some. As for what the attraction might have been, well, Smith had charisma. He was persuasive. Qualities like that carry an obvious evolutionary advantage.
One of the speakers at Sunstone 2017 was a son of Warren Jeffs. He was in his early 20s – and a lost boy of polygamy. Once he got to be 13 or so, daddy banned him from walking THROUGH the house – he had to walk outside the house and go in and out through the many doors to the outside. Why? So that he would not become a rival for daddy’s child brides, who might be attracted to someone more their own age. A friendly chat with one of his mommies began a cycle of being sent to Canada and to Jeff’s related operations around the country to keep him away from the hareem. And through it all, he craved daddy’s approval and approbation. I was saddened to learn of his suicide a few years ago.
I heard a talk given by a young woman who escaped polygamy in SLC. When asked about the lost boys she spoke of the many men who are never able to marry at all, who spend their entire lives working for AUB businesses and going to church.
Re Joseph’s appeal: adored prophet, commander of the 2nd largest standing army in the U.S., lived in a mansion, mayor of the largest city in the state, extensive real estate holdings, and even if he didn’t have fat stacks of cash, his signature bought everything he wanted . . . he was definitely the alpha male in Mormondom.
Being alone is hard! Being lonely is hard! I imagine being in a polygamous marriage doesn’t necessarily ameliorate either of those, and may in fact contribute to both situations. (And I say this recognizing my own privilege as a happily married woman – of 25 years & counting – who has experienced both of those feelings, sometimes actually directly related to being married.)
I think the crux of the issue is consent, as Elisa points out. We can talk abstractly about the practice of polygyny in human societies throughout history, but within the context of Mormonism, the real conversation is about a small coterie of powerful, mostly elderly men (many of questionable quality, to disentangle the idea that polygyny gives women the opportunity to mate with the fittest partners) who instituted a practice that benefitted them, mostly did not benefit other males with less influence, and coerced women into situations they were often powerless to reject. So, yeah, some cultures have practiced polyamorous relationships throughout history. I’m not sure many, if any, of those examples are relevant to a discussion of nineteenth century polyamorous relationships among a conservative Christian sect in the American Midwest.
@anna, absolutely that applies to this situation! I think it applies to EVERY situation …
“Is Polygamy Natural?”
No
(Betteridge’s Law of Headlines)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines